


The Selfie Fic

by predilection



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers Dino Charge
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 22:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3545672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/predilection/pseuds/predilection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shelby discovers that selfies mean a lot to Tyler.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Selfie Fic

**Author's Note:**

> In episode 4, Koda accidentally smashed Shelby's phone. What if he smashed Tyler's phone instead? 
> 
> My first Dino Charge fic. This fic was inspired by [this](http://jounouchis.tumblr.com/post/111111964823/spesswaces-reblogged-this-from-dihchan-and-added) lovely piece of fanart by jounouchis on tumblr.

Koda startles backwards the second Chase revs the motorcycle's engine. Koda clutches the wooden stick in his hands like a lifeline, and Shelby guesses that he probably hasn't been this close to a motorcycle before. 

She places what she hopes is a comforting hand on his shoulder and says, "It's okay. I get it. Where you're from, anything that makes a strange sound is a threat."

A phone chirps and before Shelby can figure out whose phone it is or even where the phone is, Koda is spinning on his heal and out from under her hand. The next thing she knows, he's bringing his stick down hard on a cherry red cell phone sitting on a nearby work station. 

Tyler lunges for it as it crashes to the ground in pieces, and Shelby realizes that it must be his. As Tyler bends down and carefully picks up what's left of his phone, a troubled expression crosses his face. He looks... panicked. 

"Tyler?" she asks, concerned.

He startles, and when he looks up at her, he's smiling, but Shelby can tell that it doesn't quite reach his eyes. He waves a dismissive hand.

"Don't worry," he says to her and to Koda who is trying to apologize. "It's just a phone."

Shelby thinks that if she hadn't seen the expression that crossed Tyler's face when his phone got smashed, she'd probably believe him. 

*

The next morning, Shelby is around the corner from the command center when she hears Tyler's voice.

"--already tried fixing it on my own," he's saying. "Can you take a look at it?"

"I have to recalibrate your zords after yesterday's battle," replies Ms. Morgan. 

"After that?" Tyler asks as Shelby walks into the room.

Ms. Morgan frowns at him. "Maybe," she says. "Sorry but your phone isn't exactly at the top of my priority list right now."

"It's okay," Tyler says, offering her a small smile, but now even more than yesterday Shelby is convinced that Tyler isn't okay. He's definitely upset about his phone.

Ms. Morgan nods once, grabs her clipboard, and then walks past Shelby as she leaves the room. 

Shelby steps closer to Tyler. She gestures to the broken phone pieces in his hands. "Can I take a look at it?" she asks. She's not an expert or anything, but her old phone loved to cause her problems, and since she usually had to figure out ways to solve them on her own, she learned quite a bit about how her phone worked.

Tyler looks over at her, surprised. "It's the pictures," he tells her, after a moment. He runs his fingers over the largest remaining part of his phone, the action almost reverent. "I've had this phone for almost two years, and I've a taken a lot of pictures with it. I can replace all the other data on it. I just want to recover the photos."

"You mean your selfies?" Shelby asks, half joking, but Tyler nods, a completely serious expression on his face, and Shelby sobers.

"They mean a lot to me," he says. He hands her his phone, carefully placing the pieces into her palms, and Shelby squeezes them, hoping that there actually is something she can do. 

"I'll try my best," Shelby tells him. 

*

The phone is in rough shape. The screen and case aren't salvageable, and the battery is so dented she thinks the safest course of action would be to throw it out. The largest piece of the phone -- the piece that contains the internal memory -- is cracked but thankfully mostly intact. 

Shelby plugs it into her laptop to see if she can access its contents that way, but although her laptop makes a sound like it's connected to the phone, it doesn't seem to register the phone's existence. Knowing this is going to be a challenge, Shelby cracks her knuckles and gets to work.

Shelby spends the rest of the morning googling data recovery and backup methods. She also downloads a few programs designed to recover phone data to see if they can access the phone. The first two programs she tries don't work, but the third is somehow able to recognize the phone, and connect her to it.

Shelby uses the program to backup as much of Tyler's phone as it can. It takes about an hour, but Shelby ends up with a copy of Tyler's apps, contacts, texts, settings, and even his wallpaper. She also ends up with a large folder containing all of Tyler's pictures.

Curious, she clicks on the sub-folder titled "selfies". It takes a moment for her laptop to load it, and it's then that Shelby realizes that the folder has over seven hundred images in it. 

Tyler's smiling in the first image in the folder, but his smile doesn't look like the bright brilliant smiles she's used to seeing on his face. She checks the photo's information and learns that it's almost two years old and from about the time Tyler graduated from high school.

She scrolls through the next few images, and the time stamps tell her that Tyler took a selfie every single day. There are selfies of him rock climbing and surfing, and selfies of him at cafés and sitting in what look like hotel rooms. The more images she looks at, the more she understands why these images are so important to Tyler. His selfies are like a journal -- a record of all the places he's been and all the things he's done for the past two years. They're also likely a record of all the places Tyler has searched for his father.

She skims the rest of the gallery until she reaches the most recent images. Unlike the hundreds of other selfies in the gallery, the most recent ones feature other people. There are selfies of Tyler taken with Chase, Riley, and Koda. She even finds the selfies Tyler took with her. Tyler looks happier and more at ease in these newer images.

She scrolls back up to the first images, and examines the way Tyler's smiles looked sadder back then. For the first time, Shelby wonders what Tyler was doing before he met them. If his gallery is any indication, Tyler was traveling by himself for a long time. 

The thought of someone as friendly and compassionate as Tyler being alone for so long makes something in her chest tighten.

She swallows, closes her laptop, and goes searching for Tyler.

*

She finds Tyler in the break room of the café poking at a brand new bright red phone.

"Is that the new Nebula?" she asks when she gets a good look at it.

"Yeah. I just got it," Tyler tells her.

Shelby is about to tell him the good news about his data when she gets an idea. It's such a brilliant idea that she has to keep herself from jumping up and down in excitement. 

"I've been meaning to check out the new Nebula," she lies, hoping he assumes her cheerful tone is because of the phone. "Can I play with it until your shift ends?"

"Sure," Tyler agrees easily, passing it to her. "Speaking of my shift, it's about to start. I gotta run," he says apologetically, rushing for the door.

"I'll see you later," she tells him, and when the door is shut behind him, Shelby starts fiddling with his new phone. The first thing she realizes is that the phone is so new that Tyler hasn't had a chance to add any contacts or change any of the settings yet. Even the wallpaper is the default one. It's perfect for her plan.

She puts his new phone in her pocket, and heads back to the command center where she left her laptop.

*

Shelby plugs Tyler's new phone into her laptop. Then she starts up the data recovery program she used to back up his old phone. Because it's a recovery program, it was designed to transfer backed up data to new devices, so she sets the program to put all of the data it was able to save from his old phone onto his new phone. 

A half hour later, Tyler's new phone has all the files and settings of his old one, including his wallpaper. Shelby feels giddy as she opens the gallery on his new phone to find a restored version of Tyler's selfie folder. 

Shelby throws her arms up in the air and cheers. 

She did it. She restored his phone.

She can't wait to tell Tyler. She looks at the time, and her excitement builds as she waits for his shift to end.

*

Shelby waits outside the giant Tyrannosaurus head that makes up the door of the café. The second Tyler steps through it and out into the museum, she calls out, "Tyler!"

He waves when he spots her. "Oh, hey, Shelby." 

She walks over to him, and holds out his phone. "Thanks for letting me borrow this." 

"No problem," he says as he takes it from her. 

Then she waits for him to notice.

She doesn't have to wait long. A moment later, he pushes the button to turn on his screen, and Shelby can tell the second he recognizes the wallpaper from his old phone because his eyes go wide. He quickly unlocks his phone, and she watches as he begins looking through it. He enters his gallery and opens his selfie folder. He scrolls through it for a moment, then abruptly stops and looks up at her.

"How?" he asks her, sounding stunned.

Shelby grins. "Well, I found a recovery program and used it to put the files from your old phone onto your new one," she explains.

Slowly, Tyler begins to smile. Shelby watches as it transforms his features until his eyes are bright and he looks genuinely happy for the first time since his old phone broke.

"Thank you," he says, softly. "I don't... I don't know what to say."

"I'm just glad I could help," she tells him, and she's thrilled that her plan worked, and that she could do something like this for him.

Tyler looks back down at his phone, and continues scrolling through his selfie folder. Shelby moves so she can more obviously look over his shoulder, and tells him, "Just so you know, I took a look at some of your photos."

Tyler glances over at her. "What did you think?" he asks.

"I think I'm starting to understand why your selfies are so important to you," she tells him, thinking of how happy he seems in his most recent selfies compared to his older ones.

He grins at her, and asks, "Then can I?" 

Shelby is about to ask him, "Can you what?", but then Tyler thumbs over to his camera app, throws an arm around Shelby's shoulder, and holds his camera out at arm's length.

Shelby laughs, puts her own arm around Tyler's back, and smiles at the camera.


End file.
